Santos forward Neymar is unfortunately not being linked to Manchester United at the moment.
However, considering United will be losing both the ageing Michael Owen and out-of-favour Dimitar Berbatov this summer, the Red Devils will inevitably have to bring in reinforcements.
Rooney, Welbeck, and Hernandez make for a formidable offence, but seeing as though United consistently play more games than most English clubs, it’s imperative for Sir Alex to build a deep bench.
Neymar fits into David Gill’s transfer policy of only signing young, highly-promising players rather brilliantly. If United could bag the Brazilian at a somewhat reasonable fee, they could potentially make money should they resell him down the road. With transfer fees only increasing over time, it’s likely that a club will pay more for him later whilst he’s in his prime than they would right now.
Given that Chelsea have brought in Eden Hazard and Hulk, United will have to do better than Shinji Kagawa (pictured below) to compete. It’s not to say that adding two players will necessarily help Chelsea close the 25 point gap on the Manchester teams from last year, but it’s a good start. Given their recent Champions League success, their collective confidence will be sky-high at the start of next season.
But it’s not just Chelsea that United have to worry about next year. City will undoubtedly sell off a few of their big ticket players in order to splash out in the summer transfer market.
Given their recent success, the mentality around Manchester City will be to put their foot down on the pedal as heavily as humanly possible before FIFA’s Financial Fair Play Rules come into effect. Grabbing the likes of Robin van Persie and Wesley Sneijder is not out of the question for Roberto Mancini.
Signing Neymar would be a serious sign of intent from a heavily indebted club that has spent very little over the last few years.
With Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, and Sir Alex Ferguson leaving Old Trafford sooner rather than later, it’s critical that the next generation is stacked with as much talent as the Glazers can afford, least they might suffer a prolonged period of mediocrity.
And while mediocrity might be fine with Arsenal fans, it certainly won’t be tolerated by United supporters, who represent roughly 1/10 of the world’s population.
